A pastor who referred to homosexuality and abortion as a “darkness” was awarded a civic award by Greenwich Council.

The ceremony, which was held on March 23, saw Pastor Michael Olawore of the New Wine Church receive his award for the organisations activities which “support the local community and beyond”.

The same ceremony also saw Chad Ndebele receive a young person’s outstanding achievement award for their work as an advocate for LGBTQ young people in Greenwich and across the country.

New Wine Church are based Woolwich and received the award for initiatives such as a food bank and Christmas hamper campaign.

Mr Olawore, has previously published material on February 5, 2012, in which he described homosexuality as part of “the world of darkness”.

He has called homosexuality a sin on April 13, 2014, comparing it to “sorcery, lies, malice witchcraft, homosexuality, sickness.”

In another published piece on November 23, 2014, he wrote that God loves everyone including “lesbians and homosexuals; he loves the murderers, cheats, gossips and liars.”

New Wine Church is holding an Overflowing Abundance event this week from July 24 to 30 and includes speaker Creflo Dollar, an American televangelist who tried to raise funds from his faithful followers so he could purchase a $65m private jet.

When the subject of New Wine Church’s statements was brought up at a meeting of Greenwich Council on July 19, leader Denise Hyland said: “When we have a judging panel for awards then the judging panel is made up from the community and we can only go from the information in front of us at the time.”

Speaking to Greenwich blog 853, she later said the councils plans to “review how we can square our awards system to ensure any organisations or individuals being nominated fully embrace the Council’s values of equality and diversity”.

A Greenwich Council spokesperson said: “The New Wine church was one of six winners in the category of ‘Community’ after the Judging Panel found that the Church organised numerous activities and initiatives which supported the local community, such as their Saturday breakfast events, food-bank initiative, Christmas hamper campaign, wellness workshop and children’s holiday events.

“Organisations are judged on the nominations and information provided to the panel by the nominees at the time.

“Clearly, upholding the values of tolerance, equality, acceptance and diversity are of the utmost importance to us.”